Centinex hail from the old school death metal scene. This is a band that’s been around in one form or another since 1990, that’s 15 years of slugging it out through quite a few metal trends but nothing has seen them deter. Sure, there’s been change and progression but most bands see that as well and at the very core, musically, this is still the same band.

WORLD DECLENSION sees Centinex follow up the rather successful DECADENCE – PROPHECIES OF COSMIC CHAOS. I think much of the talk with the last album was because the band branched out a bit with their use of melody, the songs were still death metal and didn’t drown themselves in being Gothenburg BUT the bands use of melody was certainly more overt than I had been used to in the past. With that, it saw some old fans be a bit turned off while seeing some new fans jump into the thick of things. With WORLD DECLENSION the band steps back a bit, through more riffs at listeners, giving more of that dirty Swedish death metal.

The album is split into two chapters. Chapter 1 entitled, Visions of Armageddon with Chapter II being Earth Inferno. “Victorious Dawn Rising” blasts the album open with heavy, thrashing riffing. The song borders on death/thrash and relies on it’s heavy, almost thrash, riffing interspersed with some pounding drums and some quite nice lead work. The opening riff in “Purgatorial Overdrive” sound oddly stunted, not that it’s a bad thing, but the riff has a very different feel to it before sitting into something a bit more comfortable. The chorus riff is really the one that shines that most though, it’s slightly melodic, yet quite busy and plays off the verse riff (which seems to carry some of the same melody) very well. The speed only continues on “As Legions Come”. It starts out deceptively slow and even leans into epic doom for a riff or two (0:50-1:10) but the song morphs into yet another pounding blast of speed and anger but with some major melodic doses here and there (1:45). When the song eventually slows down a bit again with a drum/guitar sync up on a stop/start riff that sees some nice layered guitar melodies it hits that much harder because of the dynamic change.

“Synthetic Sin Zero” kicks off Chapter II: “Earth Inferno”. The band has actually gone a head and made a video for this one (you can download it off their site. It’s no wonder this song became the video as it’s the most melodic song on the album. The song doesn’t get overly fast but it does have a good enough dose of speed and that main riff is thrashy and hideously infectious. “Flesh is Fragile” start with choppy riffing before settling into a more smooth, churning riff for the verse. My favourite section comes in at 1:46 with the drums taking over and the guitars accenting on each snare hit, which is incredibly awesome especially with the snare taking a rather schizoid approach. The beginning of “Deconstruction Macabre” is a great pump up for the rest of the song with marching drums along with a soundclip of a marching army overtop. The song becomes pretty “busy” after that, jumping from some straight death metal to some death/thrash riffs here and there but most of all, this song feels like a true ending to the album, the build up came and now things are just exploding and finally being released. It creates a perfect flow.

15 years and Centinex still haven’t slowed down. WORLD DECLENSION is one of the better death metal albums I’ve heard this year and possibly my favourite Centinex release yet.